Trade union demands University administration to discipline students engaged in ethnic violence

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 June 2016, 23:42 GMT]The main responsibility to discipline the Sinhala students engaged in violence against Tamil students, academics and the workers at the Eastern University, lies with the University administration, said Mr Ramanathan Rajasekaram, the president of the Union of Non-Academic Staff in an interview to TamilNet on Wednesday. Those involved in instigating confrontations seemed to be the same personalities. Even when the administration took certain disciplinary actions, the involved Sinhala students were behaving in a manner that they had certain power above the University administration, he said.

On Friday last week, the group of Sinhala students who were protesting against the disciplinary action taken by the administration, laid siege to the entrances, blocking the workers from leaving the premises, he said.

When the academic and non-academic staffs were trying to convince the students in a polite manner, the protesting Sinhala students went abusive, he said.

When the military and police were urged to calm down the protesting students, they said it would be wrong for them to intervene in the dispute between the students.

Mr Rajasekaram said it his union was fully cooperating with the University administration and that there was a sense of feeling that the relationship between Colombo's Education ministry and the University administration was good and the Sinhalese and Tamils were no longer involved in confronting each other violently.

However, the situation had gone out of control as some students were causing ethnic violence at the Eastern University unlike in other places, he said.

It was the firm stand of the Non-Academic staff that the administration should not allow itself to succumb to imaginations of pressure and harassments coming from the troublemakers, Mr Rajasekaram said.

“It is fine to resolve the dispute in a peaceful way. But, when a disciplinary action is already set in motion, the administration should not deviate from implementing it fearing external elements,” he said.